Penultimate Fantasy
by RMSephy
Summary: The story of a child who rises from the darkness to attain the pointless and perfectly stupidical office of a hero. R&R pleez!!! (2nd Chapter Up)
1. The World and all its Stupidities

Chapter 1  
  
____T'was a dark and stormy night... There is a harsh wind blowing, the sky is covered wth ominous clouds, and the average temperature of the day is 75 degrees Fahrenheit, with a high of 100 degrees. Right now the temperature was not at its high. Quite the opposite, actually. Some people are relieved at this, confusing Fahrenheit with Celsius and fearing that the heavens would rain down boiling water if it hadn't cooled off before the storm. Of course, these were the same idiots that had considered overthrowing the united republic that the world had been since around ten years ago and bringing back the monarchy. Seeing their opportunity when the case was brought up in the legislature, certain other people argued that the world would be better as an anarchy where all the towns had no contact with each other whatsoever, only selling supplies to the occasional hero out to save the world. THOSE people were the ones who eventually got their way in the Legislation. The authority immediately took action to bring this idea to reality, and started off by chopping the House of Legislation to pieces, fearing that it was a threat to the new anarchy because of the socializing that took place between people of different villages.  
____Most parents didn't want their kids to grow up to become occasional heroes out to save the world, mainly on account of income problems. As a result, just about everyone had wanted to become a hero. However, anyone who wanted to become a hero had to expect to face a life of horrendous hardship. Everyday, they must fight apocalyptical monsters and find their way through intricate labyrinths, yet that's not their worst problem. Most people consider them heroes to be rebellious. A survey had shown that if you went to any single town and randomly picked out two people, there would be a 20% chance that they would look exactly the same. That part about looking rebellious is around 30% of their worst problem. As mentioned before, there's the income problem. Your average hero earns around 2000 Gil a day, noticeably less than the income of the average merchant or the average guy who walks around a village repeating random stuff to travelers. In the old days, you could pick out two people from one village and there'd be a 30% chance that they'd say the same exact thing. Recently, some guys went on a movement for individuality and encouraged people to come up with original things to repeat over and over again to travelers. The youngsters caught on to the idea pretty quickly. The adults said that the whole idea seemed pretty blasphemous. The really old geezers said please, save the princess!! --- Obviously the idea of original speech never caught on with them. But anyhow, the guys who started the movement wound up earning noticeably more than your average hero, which makes up another 50% percent of the hero's worst problem.  
____The average hero, being desperate to stand out and make themselves look rebellious to most people, usually spend more than 80% (1600 Gil for your average hero) of their income to purchase various hair conditioners and to hire specialized tailors to design their costumes so as to make themselves stand out even more. This leaves on 20% (400 Gil) left for the less important stuff like medicine, the most popular of which being the line of healing liquids manufactured by the Potions company. The company started up when a guy called Alexander Potion discovered that by mixing various chemicals he could create a substance that repairs damaged tissue. Being conceited, he named it after himself, and is was commonly known since then as the Potion. Back then, however, no one had any use for such a substance. Alexander's industry would have ended in financial failure if he didn't come up with the idea to add alcohol to the Potion and ship it off to various bars around the world to be used as a Vodka substitute. It immediately became a hit with people, selling out all other alcoholic healing substances such as the Tonic and the Herb. Eventually, when the fad started, the Potion was used even more commonly as a healing substance, but its alcoholic properties were never removed. Eventually, Alex's potion industry, renamed the Potions company after his death, came out with the Hi Potion and the Max Potion, which recovered far more HP than people had. Heroes had to develop their max HP to four digit numbers in order to adapt to this new innovation.  
____A bit after the fad started, a depression fell upon the land, because heroes started wanting to sell items more than to buy them, and merchants went bankrupt one by one because they had no chance but to buy the heroes' goods. Only the more experienced heroes were able to possess any Gil at all. The effects of the depression were that prices of what merchants were left skyrocketed, and enemies that used to drop 50 Gil now only dropped 10 Gil. Even the guys walking around repeating random stuff had to cut back on their talking because of short-distance communication bills. People stopped becoming heroes, so there weren't any more newbie heroes. The intermediate level heroes were bitter because the experienced heroes were hogging all the Gil, even though there was nothing whatsoever that they could buy with them. Naturally it was an intermediate hero, who shall remain anonymous, who came up with the idea to attack and plunder villages to support their own budget. In time, these heroes came to be known as and , but the word Webster's Dictionary came up for them was . To protect themselves from these idiots, people called upon the veteran heroes to fight them losers. Unfortunately, they were all retired, and had all retreated to some big estate on any obscure island. However, with the promise of wealth, people started becoming heroes again, and they eventually were able to hold the villains at bay. The conflict between good and evil had been balanced like that since... oh say... two days ago, but this shall soon change in about sixteen years. By then, this new balance shall be known as the product of centuries of culture, and people won't be able to imagine how they ever lived without it. However, it had been mentioned that the balance will be screwed up in about sixteen years, and this will make at least one or two people in the villages mad.  
____It just so happens that on this dark and stormy night, a villain stealthily approached the city of Town #1.  
The villain trudged on towards the city with a blank expression, but his mind was chaotic in the process of coming up with some witty evil phrase that he could recite once he got to the village. An idea quickly flashed through his mind.  
____Edgar you idiot! Why do you have to live in a desert in the middle of nowhere?!  
____The villain rethought about this last statement, and decided that it wasn't appropriate. First of all, there was no desert here. Second, he wasn't 100% sure that there was someone in this town named Edgar, or that there was anyone in this town that had a name. Around this time, the only people who had names were heroes and villains. It is a commonly known fact that they don't sleep at night, but rather spend eight hours a day coming up with some cool name for themselves and thinking about how they could make their name sound cooler. In any case, the villain in question didn't feel like making a fool out of himself. Better write it down though, the villain thought to himself. He ought to keep a notebook of all the witty villainous phrases that he come up with. Heck, maybe someone might actually use one of his phrases someday.  
____I, Eskarite, shall knock you all down!!!  
____Eskarite frowned at this latest idea. It didn't really fit the situation, as the term knock you all down seemed to suggest the use of a club-like weapon, while his own choice of weapons is one of them generic swords. He walked on, trying to come up with a witty opening phrase for when he reach the village, when he suddenly realized that he had walked past it.


	2. The First Encounter

Chapter 2  
  
____In many ways a certain child that is currently nameless who lives in Town #1 was different from other nameless people. To simplify things a bit, the child will be known as Excalus three days after the events of the previous and current chapter.  
____As previously stated, as a child Excalus was different from other people. Different not as in physical. Like the majority of other nameless people, Excalus had two hands, two eyes, two arms, and his (two) ears are on opposite sides of his head, the way they're MEANT to be. Certain freaks are known to have ears on the top of their heads. Excalus was different from other people in that he was more of a rebel. A certain situation that occurred a few years ago may act as proof for his rebelliousness.  
  
____The scene, a grassy field in front of Excalus's house. On this specific day, a team of two heroes came to rest at the inn of Town #1 and to ask about the demon Arknegra. As usual, Excalus was wandering around the field and repeating the same phrase over and over again to travelers. However, on this one day, Excalus sudden got the idea that he doesn't HAVE to say the same thing over and over again. One of the two heroes came up to him some time in the day to inquire of the demon. The phrase that was assigned to Excalus was Don't settle for them generic brand healing substances! Satisfy your cravings with the latest Hi Potion! However, what Excalus said was something very different...  
____Rumors say that the demon Arknegra dwells in the woods east of this city.  
____The hero thanked Excalus heartily, and ran off to the east, ditching his partner sleeping in the inn. An hour later, the partner woke up, and went to Excalus to inquire of the demon.  
____Rumors say that the demon Arknegra dwells in the mountains west of this city.  
____The partner thanked Excalus heartily, and ran off to the west.  
____For those of you interested, the true dwelling place of the demon Arknegra was in a cave to the north, so neither the hero nor the partner ever found the demon. However, Excalus got in trouble for his actions, not so much for the lying part, but for deviating from his assigned phrase. The prank landed the child in a juvenile detention center, where he spent five years repeating worthless advice to newbie heroes.  
  
____Five years later brings us to the present. The previous chapter left off with the villain Eskarite stealthily approaching the city of Town #1. Of course, it being a dark and stormy night, there was no one who'd possibly see him, making it completely pointless for his stealthy approach, but it's just another one of these things that have no purpose whatsoever, but people never get tired of doing them, like video games and poetry. However, by this time Eskarite had come up with a decent enough opening phrase that he was satisfied with. He walked on to where he estimated the very center of the town was.  
____No audience saw him, yet he went on to repeat a dramatic monologue about how he's going destroy the village and take over the world and etc. Raising his hands in the air, he unleashed his pure ultimate evil energy to burn down the city. Of course, nothing happened, because any law of physics that says a fire could be started with the unleashing of ultimate evil energy is perfectly stupidical. Giving a curse, Eskarite walked towards a random house and reached into his back pocket for his box of matches...  
____The first few attempts ended in failure. It being a dark and stormy night, any fire that was started would be instantly put out by the downpour. Finally, Eskarite came up with an incredibly ingenious (time-wasting, but ingenious) plan to burn down the house.  
____After hours of back-breaking labor, a tent was put up above the house to keep it dry from the rain. Now, everything was perfect for the inferno...  
  
____This random house just happened to be that of the rebellious child who would soon be known as Excalus. Around 2:00 in the morning, about ten minutes before the house got set on fire, Excalus woke up for some unknown reason. The first thing he smelled was smoke. He looked around wildly for the source. It didn't come from the poster of the hero Eharim that he kept in the room. The candle that was in his room was alight, but that candle never went out and didn't give off any smoke. Finally he noticed that it came from a cigarette that stuck out of his mouth. The assumption was that he must have been sleep-smoking again. He quickly put the cigarette away, and went back to sleep.  
____Ten minutes later Excalus woke up again, once again picking up the scent of smoke in the room. This time there was no cigarette in his mouth, and it suddenly came to him that the house was on fire.  
  
____What the hell are you doing?! Excalus raged at the villain, And how the hell did you set the house on fire in the middle of a storm?!  
____You fool! Do you think that a trifle such as a storm could stop the Almighty entity of pure and ultimate evil that is Eskarite?!  
____Excalus turned around and saw the tent. Okay... so What the hell are you doing?!  
____I'm destroying the village.  
____Fair enough.. It was apparent to Excalus now that this guy was either a lunatic or an idiot, since only a lunatic or an idiot would waste all that time setting up a tent just to burn down a house. In any case, since there was a 50% chance that this guy was a lunatic, Excalus decided that the best thing to do was slowly walk away.  
____Hey wait a minute! You're not supposed to leave! With a deft kick, Eskarite knocked Excalus to the ground. With the child helpless, Eskarite raised his sword. None shall be spared at the hands of the almighty entity of pure and ultimate evil that is Eskar-..  
____Note that he never finished the threat. Eskarite didn't notice that, in the last few seconds, Excalus had positioned himself so that Eskarite was between him and the house. He also didn't notice there was a gas stove in the house. At that moment, the stove exploded, sending the timbers that made up the walls flying outward. One such timber hit Eskarite in the head and knocked him down. Other pieces of wood followed, eventually burying Eskarite in the debris.  
____If his title wasn't so long, I'd be dead by now! Excalus marveled.  
____Excalus was conflicted over the destruction of his house. On the one hand, he'd have to find another place to live. On the other hand, his mother-in-law was in the house when it exploded, so it wasn't THAT bad. Then Excalus remembered that he still had a deck of Hero trading cards in the house, and that it was destroyed in the blaze. This realization filled Excalus with a deep rage. I define deep rage as in if Excalus was a DBZ character, he would've instantly become a blonde. However, Excalus was born a blonde, so it's debatable whether or not he really became a Super Saiyan.  
  
____It's perfectly accurate to say that this single event was what drove the child that would be known as Excalus to becoming a hero, since that very night, as he laid on a park bench, he made the decision to become a hero, and find the villain that burned down his house and avenge his deck of Hero trading cards. That decision made, the child spent the rest of the night thinking of a cool name for himself, and another perfectly accurate statement would be that anyone who can't figure out what name he came up with is either an amnesiac or has attention deficit disorder.  
  
____Seriously.


End file.
